ible to Sibylla not to indulge in
bitter, aggravating retorts.

"I understand!" she continued, throwing up her head with an air of
supreme scorn. "Thank you, don't trouble. I am not too ill to stoop, ill
as you wish to make me out to be."

In displacing the wreath on her head to a different position, she had
let it fall. Lionel's stooping to pick it up had called forth the last
remark. As he handed it to her he took her hand.

"Sibylla, promise me to think no more of this. Do give it up."

"I won't give it up," she vehemently answered. "I shall go. And, what's
more, I shall dance."

Lionel quitted her and sought his mother. Lady Verner was not very well
that afternoon, and was keeping her room. He found her in an invalid
chair.

"Mother, I have come to tell you that I cannot accompany you to-morrow
evening," he said. "You must please excuse me."

"Why so?" asked Lady Verner.

"I would so very much rather not go," he answered. "Besides, I do not
care to leave Sibylla."

Lady Verner made no observation for a few moments. A carious smile,
almost a pitying smile, was hovering on her lips.

"Lionel, you are a model husband. Your father was not a bad one, as
husbands go; but--he would not have bent his neck to such treatment from
me, as you take from Mrs. Verner."

"No?" returned Lionel, with good humour.

"It is not right of you, Lionel, to leave me to go alone, with only
Decima."

"Let Jan accompany you, mother."

"_Jan!_" uttered Lady Verner, in the very extreme of astonishment. "I
should be surprised to see Jan attempt to enter such a scene. Jan! I
don't suppose he possesses a fit coat and waistcoat."

Lionel smiled, quitted his mother, and bent his steps towards Jan
Verner's.

Not to solicit Jan's attendance upon Lady Verner to the festival scene,
or to make close inquiries as to the state of Jan's wardrobe. No; Lionel
had a more serious motive for his visit.

He found Jan and Master Cheese enjoying a sort of battle. The surgery
looked as if it had been turned upside down, so much confusion reigned.
White earthenware vessels of every shape and form, glass jars, huge
cylinders, brass pots, metal pans, were scattered about in inextricable
confusion. Master Cheese had recently got up a taste for chemical
experiments, in which it appeared necessary to call into requisition an
unlimited quantity of accessories in the apparatus line. He had been
entering upon an experiment that afternoon, when Jan came u